Christopher Mellon
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 👤 Person
Contents 7
| Type | Person |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Mellon |
| On the Timeline | 15 events, 1957–2022 |
Christopher Karl Mellon is an American former Senate intelligence staffer and Defense Department official who, after leaving government, became one of the most influential advocates for official transparency about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). He helped bring the Navy UAP videos to public attention in 2017 and shaped the laws that created the Pentagon's UAP office.[1][2]
Early life and education
Mellon belongs to a branch of the Pittsburgh Mellon banking family and is a grandson of Matthew T. Mellon, though he grew up in modest circumstances in Chicago. He graduated from Loomis Chaffee school, earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Colby College and a master's degree in international relations from Yale University.[1]
Senate career
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From 1985 Mellon held staff positions on Capitol Hill, working for Senators William Cohen, John Chafee, John Warner and Jay Rockefeller, and spent about a decade as a professional staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. As an aide to Cohen he helped draft the legislation that created U.S. Special Operations Command in the 1987 defence bill.[1]
Pentagon career
When Cohen became Secretary of Defense in 1997, Mellon joined the Pentagon, serving as special assistant for intelligence policy, then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Security and Information Operations (1998–1999), and from November 1999 as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. He reportedly served on a committee overseeing special access programs. In February 2003 Senator Rockefeller hired him as minority staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee; he left government after a 2003–2004 partisan dispute over a leaked staff memo on Iraq intelligence.[1]
UAP advocacy
Mellon says he was invited to an AATIP meeting by an intelligence contact while outside government, and that when he could not get the attention of Defense Secretary James Mattis, he turned to the public. In 2017 he joined To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science as its national security adviser. He and Luis Elizondo are credited with bringing the Navy videos from the USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt to The New York Times for its December 2017 report, and in the 2020 documentary The Phenomenon he confirmed he was a source of the videos.[1][3][4]
His March 2018 Washington Post op-ed, "The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn't the Pentagon care?", is credited with helping move the subject into mainstream news.[1][5] He left To The Stars at the end of 2020. Reporting by Politico and others credits him with drafting the language in the 2021 defence bill, added by Senator Marco Rubio, that required the June 2021 intelligence report on UAP, and he lobbied for the 2022 provisions that created AARO.[1][6] He appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes in 2021 and in the History series Unidentified, became a research affiliate of Harvard's Galileo Project in October 2021, and appears in the 2025 documentary The Age of Disclosure.[1][7]
Criticism
At a To The Stars presentation, an image Mellon showed as possible UFO evidence was later identified as a party balloon. Critics such as journalist Art Levine argue that a small network of advocates, including Mellon, has had outsized influence over government UAP policy.[1][8]
On the UAP Timeline
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- Mach 3 radar target alert (1957) (24 September 1957) — The Air Force intelligence chief warns of a radar target crossing the U.S. at Mach 3.
- Nick Cook's Skunk Works chart (Late 1990s) — Author Nick Cook claims he glimpsed a chart of secret Skunk Works projects.
- Vallée meets D'Amato on secret programs (1992) (22 May 1992) — Vallée writes he met Senate counsel Dick D'Amato about secret programs.
- British embassy report on triangles (1992) (22 December 1992) — The British embassy reports on the U.S. reaction to triangular UAP sightings.
- Area 2 encounters at Nellis (October 1998) — A security airman at a Nevada nuclear depot describes a UAP encounter.
- Sekret Machines (5 April 2016) — DeLonge publishes the novel Sekret Machines, which he says advisers helped shape.
- Christopher Mellon goes public (2016) (9 May 2016) — Former Pentagon intelligence official Christopher Mellon speaks publicly about UAP for the first time.
- DeLonge's research groups (2016) (31 August 2016) — Tom DeLonge says he became involved with groups studying crashed craft and biology.
- DeLonge's advisers on Joe Rogan (26 October 2017) — DeLonge suggests on a podcast that senior officials and executives advise him.
- TTSA Senate briefings (12 July 2019) — DeLonge says To The Stars spent 18 months briefing the Senate and committees.
- SBIRS UAP detections claim (20 February 2020) — Christopher Mellon says a missile-warning satellite system has recorded unidentified objects.
- Mellon's first steps as president (5 May 2021) — Christopher Mellon says what he would do first about UAP if he were president.
- Mellon on off-the-books operation allegations (September 2022) — Mellon says there are many allegations of an off-the-books aerospace UAP operation.
- Mellon on the Majestic documents (September 2022) — Mellon says the 'Majestic' documents are very controversial.
- Mellon on conflicting insider claims (September 2022) — Mellon says credible people claim a cover-up, and equally credible people deny it.
References
- Christopher Mellon — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program", The New York Times (16 Dec 2017) · nytimes.com · archived copy
- M.J. Banias, "Ex Intel Official Says He Was the Source of the Pentagon's UFO Videos", Vice (20 Oct 2020) · vice.com · archived copy
- Gideon Lewis-Kraus, "How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously", The New Yorker (2021) · newyorker.com · archived copy
- Christopher Mellon, "The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn't the Pentagon care?", The Washington Post (9 Mar 2018) · washingtonpost.com · archived copy
- Bryan Bender, "How Harry Reid, a Terrorist Interrogator and the Singer From Blink-182 Took UFOs Mainstream", Politico (28 May 2021) · politico.com · archived copy
- "UFOs regularly spotted in restricted U.S. airspace", CBS News 60 Minutes (2021) · cbsnews.com · archived copy
- Art Levine, "Spaceship of Fools", The Washington Spectator (20 Jul 2023) · washingtonspectator.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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